What’s in a name?

[Deleted]

Pull a muscle indeed. Not that his neck entirely disagreed with the sentiment, but it was the principle of the thing!

Once he pulled the pieces together, the Doctor stared at the woman in front of him. Incredulous that she was still alive. He'd always expected that she'd make it through the Academy. That had never been in question. It was the fact that she'd survived the War that filled him with relief.

It was a question he had never wanted answered. But he was certainly glad it had been answered this way.

"Never mind the students. Do you want tea?"

[Ace McShane]

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"Never mind the students. Do you want tea?" She couldn’t help but laugh, a genuine tension releasing laugh that seemed bring a sparkle to her face.

“Yes, I would love a good cup of tea.” She couldn’t remember the last time she was able to properly drop her guard but seeing the current situation she felt she could.

Properly taking the glasses off this time and stuck them in her jacket pocket. Ace held her hand out in front of her indicating for him to lead the way. “After you.”

[Deleted]

The Doctor's face melted into a smile as well. This was a happy occasion. And one Nardole couldn't - wouldn't - take from him. After all, visiting with a former companion who had clearly grown so much since he'd last seen her that wasn't leaving the Earth. Or risking anything. They weren't even leaving campus.

"Excellent."

The Doctor picked up the rest of his things and headed out of the lecture hall, comfortable enough to let Ace walk behind him. Almost any other Time Lord, he'd want to keep his eyes on.

He'd lead her up to his office, through his personal entrance rather than the public one supposedly students were hanging around. Most of them gave up if he ignored them. He'd call this a test of character should any challenge him, but really, he'd lost interest in answering questions they could look up for themselves. Particularly when a far better diversion was present.

[Ace McShane]

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Ace followed The Doctor into his Office, hearing the sound of students hanging around outside his office door from here.

She really didn’t know where to start. Letting her eyes wander around The Doctors office, Ace thought she saw some things that probably shouldn’t be on earth, much less in a teacher's office.

Smiling a little to herself Ace could feel the TARDIS prickling at the edge of her senses, the short amount of time she had had a TARDIS they had had a hard time finding one to pair her with due to the time she had spent on The Doctors and some part of her still considered it home.

“So, Nardole. He seems nice.”

[Deleted]

The pencil cup full of sonic screwdrivers and the TARDIS in his office were - if anyone else asked - completely for decorative purposes. Not that he expected that would work on Ace. But then... he didn't think she'd mind too much.

He had to store them somewhere!

Fetching the tea from where Nardole had left it, he looked up to his former companion.

"Sugar? Milk?"

Her questioning comment about Nardole had him grumble slightly.

"He's an interfering busy body is what he is," The Doctor informed her.

[Ace McShane]

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For a nanosecond, Ace considered nicking one of the Sonics but decided quickly against it; Ace doubted she’d make it halfway down the hall before the sonic was noticed to be missing. However, she did pick one up and inspect it, pressing the button doing a slight scan of the room and looking at the readings.

“Hmm?” she had been momentarily lost in her thoughts when The Doctor asked her if she wanted Sugar or Milk in her tea. “Oh,” clearing her throat a little and softly depositing the sonic back into the pencil cup. “Milk please.” Reaching up the scratched the side of her head with her index finger letting out a small hmmph laugh as The Doctor called Nardole an interfering busy body.

“Now, I’m sure he’s not that bad Professor.” Scratching off bits of a broken nail “I never got a chance to thank you know. For umm, helping me get into the academy that is.”

[Deleted]

The tiniest smile flicked over the Doctor's face, noting Ace's fascination with his sonic. He didn't keep an obvious eye on her. A sign of trust that was rewarded as his sonic - the only one she'd lifted, he'd noted - clunked back into his mug.

He splashed milk into her cup.

"You're right." His voice dropped to a whisper, as he added conspiratorially. "He's worse."

The Doctor shook off her thanks, looking about as uncomfortably with it as he ever was.

"As I recall, you weren't always keen on the idea."

Of course, he could have handled things better. But that's how it always was with his past selves, wasn't it?

"It's good you changed your mind."

[Ace McShane]

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Ace took the cup of tea offered after The Doctor added milk and stirred it a little with her spoon watching the color changing as the milk mixed with the tea.

"As I recall, you weren't always keen on the idea." Ace was silent for a moment while she choose her words carefully. "At the time, no I wasn't."

Stopping herself from saying it, Ace almost said if she had been told instead of feeling like she'd been tossed into it without really knowing what was to come; she'd of had a better reaction to it.

Taking a sip of her tea Ace watched The Doctor for a second as he said he was glad she had changed her mind; "Yeah." Wrinkling her brow a little, maybe milk had been a bad choice. "As well as other things it would seem." she said softly to herself.

Anyway, it was in the past, and the past is prologue.

"I wasn't completely honest with you back there as to why I'm here."

[Deleted]

Noting the disgusted wrinkle of the woman's nose, the Doctor switched their cups and sat down as if it hadn't happened. He wasn't as much of a tea snob in this life as he had been in others. At least he could prevent himself for talking about the history for five minutes before taking a sip.

That had been a rather loquacious life.

"Not just here as a favor to Kate, I take it?"

[Ace McShane]

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Ace couldn’t help but make a slight face when The Doctor switched their cups, not in a complaining way but as in a don’t fuss sort of way but went along with it anyway.

Following the Doctors lead, she sat down and absentmindedly rolled the cup of tea in her hands. Staring off into space some “No, not just here as a favor to her.” There was no point in beating around the bush about it.

“Well, kind of.” Sighing Ace frowned again a little “In return for doing this little errand for them UNIT would allow me use of their databanks to do a little bit of research on something I’m looking into.”

Ace sat the cup down and clasps her hands together “Kind of a trade for information I guess you would say.”

[Deleted]

The Doctor remained silent for several minutes, waiting to see what else Ace would say. Doing a favour for Kate in return for a favour was hardly the sort of lie to need to confess about, was it? And Ace, she'd known him during some of his most manipulative years! Certainly the most overtly so.

So why bring it up?

And what sort of information did she need that only UNIT could provide?

It did make him wonder. But he just kept sipping his tea, as if he hadn't realized that he was meant to say something at this juncture.

[Ace McShane]

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“What do you know of current human evolution Doctor?” she asked. Placing her cup down Ace started fiddling in the pockets of her jacket looking for something. “More specifically, in regards to technological evolution.”

Finally finding what she had been looking for Ace pulled out a couple pictures of bodies that had been pulled from rivers and scattered over different parts of England and laid them on the table.

The bodies in the pictures seemed to be humans partially upgraded. Eyes haven been replaced by primitive computer screens, one had what looked like a speech bubble poking out of the side of their head with a digital screen that looked to be flickering "Cookies" across it when the picture had been taken.

[Deleted]

What didn't he know about human evolution was a better question. By this point in his lives, he'd practically raised them from the slime. Mind you, the origin of that slime was in some strands of time rather.. shall we say, dubious? There had been so many origins of life on the planet. Of the universe, truly. He'd witnessed several handful.

Usually he witnessed potential ends to life than the beginning. But variety was nice.

The Doctor took a sip of what was now his tea.

"I'm plenty familiar with the technology humanity should be capable of according to historical record. Influx of alien technology on the semi-constant basis Earth receives does like to muddle the waters, so to speak."

He looked over the photographs that Ace produced with a curiousity that soon made way for horrified fascination.

"What do you know so far?"

[Ace McShane]

Ace shook her head a little “Not much, only theories.” The body dump had been random, and it had seemed they had had a hard time narrowing down the connection between the bodies.

“I did, however,” she reached back into her pockets and pulled out a tiny bag that contained what seemed to be one of the eye lenses in it “Manage to nick this from UNIT while their backs were turned.” She smiled mischievously. Before offering it to The Doctor in case he wanted to take a closer look at it.

[Deleted]

"Of course you did," The Doctor's voice could easily be interpreted as being warm, although the words were delivered in such a dry fashion. The tiny twitch of his lips and glance up from the photograph to Ace's eyes made his meaning clear.

He took the packet, flicking through it and glancing to the photos again from time to time.

"I'll tell you what... this isn't anything of the sort I'd call human evolution. It's more like someone tried to humanize your instant messengers. Not that I can fathom why. Humans are less efficient and far slower at these sorts of things."